


I Dream You're Still Here

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Tea Time [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Afternoon Tea challenge, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 17:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20800142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: It does not do to dwell on the past.But three years later, Dave still mourns.





	I Dream You're Still Here

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick mention - I haven't finished reading Homestuck yet. But Bro's death hurt, so I'm ignoring canon for that. 
> 
> Also, I have no idea if I've written Dirk correctly, given I haven't reached his intro in canon yet. Please keep your spoilers away from me.

The dream haunts him, familiar and terrible. He's back in Houston, back in those shitty apartments, and there's shit scattered all over the place. It all looks so lived in, still. Hard to believe it's only a dream.

Dave never wants it to be only a dream.

The apartment door is swinging open, like someone only just threw it open. Dave can remember his Bro doing that half a dozen times when he was younger, and he just zipped down to grab a package from their postbox, or wound up with a last-minute gig at some club or another around the city. The sight makes his heart ache fiercely, and it only gets worse when the echo of footsteps comes from the landing below his, like there's someone racing down the steps.

It's only ever a dream, but Dave never fails to follow. Not in life, and not now, even when logic tells him it's just a PTSD-fueled dream, that his brother is really dead and never coming back. The body in Beat Mesa had been real flesh and blood, not like the phantoms in his head. Dave had felt the blood on his hands when he'd tried to pull the sword out, sticky-hot and smelling like pennies. 

There was a park a block down from their complex. When Dave was younger, Bro would bring him here to play on the swings with Li'l Cal. Back before all the shit had gone down, and Dave had wound up more or less an orphan at thirteen. 

He's sixteen now. The Game is won, the Session over. He should be _done _with chasing after the ghosts of his brother.

And yet, the footsteps slap rapid-fire against the pavement ahead of him, sounding so impossibly close, like if Dave would just take two more steps forward the pea-soup thick fog would part, and there he'd be. And all Dave would have to do is call out, and Bro would turn--

_"Hey little man. Isn't it kinda early for you?"_

His throat tightens, eyes burning. Fuck. _Fuck. _

_Yeah no, you're not over this, dipshit. Not in the slightest. _

Like he didn't fucking know that. Like he hasn't known that the last _three fucking years _of his life. He's not over Bro's death, and he might never be - fuck, at times he's fine, thinking on Bro doesn't fucking hurt, if anything it makes him smile because he remembers late nights with video games, curled underneath Bro's arm, falling asleep knowing he was safe, ear pressed to his Guardian's rib cage, hearing the steady beat of the man's heart. He remembers ice cream trips in the summer, sneaking down early to try to listen to Bro test out new beats in the living room, only to get caught and tickled as a punishment. Back before the smuppets and the stupid ironic-not-ironic-irony shit and Dave's stubborn teenage pride. 

He'd never even gotten to say goodbye. 

That's the worst part of the whole shitting thing, Dave thinks as his throat tightens more and more, his eyes burning as tears begin to come. Is that he never got a chance to thank his brother for training him up, for raising him, for saving his hide multiple fucking times, and in the end, for showing him how to be a good person. If Dave could have thanked him for even one of those things, maybe he'd have some kind of closure. And yeah, he can listen to Rose and Dirk both telling him _'you were brothers, he knew what you didn't get to say' _from sunup til sundown, but that doesn't make this okay.

It doesn't make the pain stop. It doesn't make the echoes of his brother leave him alone. It doesn't make the dream hurt less. 

The low gleam of the lamp lights remind him of the _one time _he managed to get a drop on Bro. Once. Long ago, back when he'd been only seven, and his Bro had crashed hard on the couch after two back-to-back gigs. Dave had wanted to go to the park, and hadn't seen any reason why he shouldn't go at four in the morning, when the sun had barely been making lines over the horizon. So he had, and he'd gone the way he always went, but the fog had been so thick, the lights barely breaching the cover, that he'd gotten turned around at some point, and wound up right back at the apartment.

Dejected, he'd gone back up, only to find himself locked out of the apartment. Unwilling to wake Bro, he'd just sat down on the cool cement balcony outside until the door had been yanked off its hinges three hours later, and Bro had nearly tripped over him in his rush to find him.

Even now, the visceral memory of his brother's panicked expression, for once not hidden away behind the Strider Mask, remains. He'd scared Bro shitless, and made him furious, but Bro hadn't smacked him or scolded him. Just gotten him back inside and hugged him tight. 

He wonders if this was what Bro felt like, back then. Waking up and suddenly just finding Dave _gone, _and not knowing anything. No signs of kidnapping, no memory of him the night before, just. Gone.

He wishes Bro were alive to ask. But that would defeat the purpose of asking, because then Dave wouldn't give a shit. He wouldn't empathize, because Bro would be _alive. _

Someone's shaking him. The dream fades out, and Dave wakes up between one breath and the next, eyes damp with tears, throat still tight. For a moment, he's back in the apartment, and he can believe that it's Bro shaking him, that any second he'll hear, _"Dave, little man, s'just a dream. It's okay man, I got you. You're safe."_

Instead, he hears Dirk's voice. "Dave, man, you alright? Hey, c'mon, wake up. You're not there anymore, it's not real. C'mon, eyes open, time to come on back to reality."

Fuck. _Fuck. _He grits his teeth and sits up, but doesn't open his eyes, instead raising a knee and using it to hide the tears as they come. It's not Dirk's fault, and it's not Dave's fault, and it's not even really Bro's fault. Bro did what he had to fucking do, and Dave is grateful as fuck for that.

But godsfuckingdammit did he have to leave Dave to feel like a shattered goddamned fuck at every opportunity?

There's a moment of quiet. Dave breathes in to the count of five and out to the count of seven and back in to five, and then there's a hand petting down his spine, Dirk wordlessly understanding, just like Bro would.

And in the face of that, it's fucking _hard _to tell himself to stop fucking crying. It doesn't help that it feels like he's letting an infection bleed, like the fucking pus is coming out. It hurts like a bitch, but it's coming out, it's getting better. So Dave ignores the whole thought of his image and the cool guy all Striders should naturally be and lets himself bleed.

Dirk's the motherfucking Prince of Heart. Out of all of them, he understands. So when he sits at the edge of the bed, a wordless vow to remain until Dave's soothed, Dave scoots to give him room. It's kind of ironic, he thinks, that even when Dirk's the same size and age as him, he's the more destructive force between them. Dave wakes up from bad dreams, and Dirk steps in to keep him safe until he's sane again.

And he's not the only one. He can feel Davesprite's feral presence in the back of his head, and just like Dirk, he just _gets it. _The sprite glides in through the nearby window Dave almost always keeps cracked out of habit, massive golden wings spreading themselves around the duo on the bed, further shielding them from prying eyes. 

It's funny enough to get a sort of weak choking laugh out of Dave, if only for a second. The fucking Knight of Time, weakened by his own emotions to the point where he needs protecting. Gods, he's pathetic.

"Don't," Dirk orders softly, and Dave can't stop himself meeting the crimson eyes of his Guardian's earlier self. "Don't hide yourself away like that, and don't beat up on yourself for mourning. There's only so much shit you can control. Whatever you were dreaming about wasn't one of them. Let yourself break, then pick up the pieces and keep going. I know it hurts, but you've got to keep living."

He's right. It fucking hurts, nearly as bad as the renewed knowledge that _Bro isn't coming back, _but Dirk's never lied to him. Bro won't come back, and the world is just gonna keep on turning as it's been doing. He's not the only one still suffering the loss of his Guardian, and he can't and shouldn't be thinking he's the only one still hashing shit out internally. 

"Does it ever get easier?"

Both Davesprite and Dirk snort.

"Fuck no," they chorus.

"There's gonna be so many fuckin' relapses," Dirk says, and despite the almost amused tone, there's an underlayer of exhaustion there. "You're gonna be fine for weeks, and then something will set you off and you'll cry for fuckin' days. Unless you want I should--?" he wiggles a hand invitingly. 

Davesprite swipes talons at him with a hiss of displeasure. "Fucker, don't deaden him. The sooner he bleeds this poison out, the better. Dave, fucking cry if you need to cry. John sleepwalks to his dad's room to sleep in the bed sometimes, and Rose won't fall asleep unless she's emptied the entire bar out onto the countertops. The amount of times I've gone in there and there's been nothing but bottles all over the fucking place are too many to count. You're allowed to cry."

"Thanks for the blanket permission, Captain Featherbrain," Dirk snarks, and neatly avoids the talons that swipe at him again. "Now that everyone's done spilling emotions everywhere, can we all go the fuck back to sleep?"

Which is how Dave finds himself being spooned by Dirk, and blanketed by Davesprite. The sounds of their breathing and the sensation of their warmth drags him back to simpler times, and he falls asleep in what feels like seconds.

This time, he does not dream.


End file.
